The number of transactions traded in April 2003 on Euronext cash markets have increased by 20.6% year-on-year: the 13 million transactions registered during the month bring to almost 50 million the total number of transactions in the year-to-date, growing by 15% compared to the same period in 2002. More than 650,000 transactions were daily traded on average this month, around 594,000 in the year-to-date.
Shares
An even stronger increase of over 22% year-on-year has been observed in shares trading in April, reaching 12.4 million transactions, with a daily average of 618,000. The total number of 46.4 million transactions registered since January, up 16% year-on-year, brings to 560,000 the number of shares transactions traded year-to-date on a daily average basis.
Trackers
Transactions in trackers have seen continued growth during the month, up 119% year-on-year and up 113% in the year-to-date. A total of 48,000 transactions were made in April bringing the total traded in the year-to-date to 180,000.
Derivatives products
Euronext.liffe, the international derivatives business of Euronext, has traded 50.5 million futures and options contracts in April 2003, with an average daily volume of 2.5 million contracts.
For the first four months of 2003, Euronext.liffe has traded a total of 230 million contracts.
Interest rate products continue to show the strongest growth, with 19 million contracts traded during April 2003, up 51% year-to-date.
Universal Stock Futures, a cheap, easy and efficient alternative to trading stocks themselves, have achieved new record levels, trading an average daily volume of 46,139 contracts in April and open interest reaching a new high of 722,084 contracts on 30 April.
Equity index products traded 12 million contracts, an increase of 14% compared to April last year. Commodity products continue to grow at a healthy rate, up 31% on the same month last year.
